In this mailing:
- Khaled Abu Toameh: Arabs Are Fed Up With the 'Ungrateful' Palestinians
- Lawrence A. Franklin: China's Persecution of Uyghur Muslims: The Silence of the Islamic World
by Khaled Abu Toameh • August 19, 2020 at 5:00 am
"It is stupid to burn my country's flag and want me to salute you." — Dr. Waseem Yousef, Emirati academic, on Twitter.
"When I see the flag of my country being burned by some Palestinians because of the peace treaty with Israel – I apologize to every Israeli man if I offended him in the past." — Dr. Waseem Yousef.
"Imagine that in just 17 years, Saudi Arabia paid [the Palestinians] $6 billion and the UAE $2.5 billion. This means that in 40 years, we are talking about no less than $20 billion. I expect that had we spent this money on Israel, its people would have converted to Islam." — From a UAE-affiliated account on Twitter.
The Palestinian leaders' strong condemnation of the UAE and other Arab states that support normalization with Israel has also driven many Arabs to raise the issue of financial corruption of the Palestinian leadership. Some Gulf citizens pointed out that the personal fortunes of Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal are worth at least $9 billion, while others claimed that Mahmoud Abbas's personal wealth is estimated at $200 million.
Scenes of Palestinians burning and trampling flags of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and pictures of its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed, have sparked a wave of protests in a number of Arab countries. Pictured: Palestinians in Ramallah burn pictures of Bin Zayed and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on August 15, 2020. (Photo by Abbas Momani/AFP via Getty Images)
Scenes of Palestinians burning and trampling flags of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and pictures of its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed, have sparked a wave of protests in a number of Arab countries. Their citizens are accusing the Palestinians of ingratitude, treason and hypocrisy.
The powerful reactions of many Arabs to the Palestinian campaign of incitement against the UAE -- after its agreement establish relations with Israel -- are yet another sign of the increased disillusionment in the Arab world with the Palestinians.
The message the Arabs are sending to the Palestinians is roughly, "We are fed up with you and your cause. You people are ungrateful, hypocritical and vindictive. Decade after decade, we pumped billions of dollars into your coffers -- and now you have the arrogance to burn our flags and pictures of our leaders and hurl insults at us."
by Lawrence A. Franklin • August 19, 2020 at 4:00 am
The globe's most influential Muslim international forum, the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), in a resolution drafted in March last year, in fact commended China's efforts in its care of the country's Muslims.
The silence of the oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia is, in part, explained by the at least $75 billion of investment deals reached in the last few years. Moreover, China is Saudi Arabia's largest trading partner. However, Saudi Arabia's failure publicly to support Uyghur Muslims shreds the Kingdom's claim to be the "Defender of the Faith."
Perhaps a more realistic but cynical explanation for the seemingly incongruous alliance between China and the globe's Islamic governments is the collegial compatibility of authoritarian regimes. None of these tyrannical entities wants international observers to arrive inside their sovereign realms to investigate human rights abuses of minorities....
More strategically threatening to the existing liberal international order may be a decision by the world's Islamic states and other Third World countries not to condemn Beijing in the event that China might emerge as victor in the new Cold War.
Pictured: The Artux City Vocational Skills Education Training Service Center, surrounded by concrete security walls, fences topped with razor wire and guard towers, north of Kashgar in China's northwestern Xinjiang region. It is reportedly a "re-education camp" where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained. (Photo by Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)
When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the entire Islamic world united behind their fellow Muslim Afghans and cooperated with the West to force the USSR to withdraw. By contrast, China's Communist security forces have transformed their ethnic Uyghur majority province of Xinjiang into a huge concentration camp, but the world's Islamic states have refused to criticize Beijing.
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